What Are the Best and Safest Techniques for a Secondary (Not Revision, Just Fading Results) Facelift?

Mini Facelift Effective Option for Secondary Facial Rejeuvenation following full facelift.

A full or "traditional" facelift  addresses the sagging upper and lower neck skin and (platysmal) vertical neck bands, jowls,  lower and mid nasolabial folds and marionette lines. It involves incisions from the temple scalp, along the front of the ear (inside the mid part for women), behind the ear in the crease then along or into the scalp hair behind the ear towards the back of your neck with undermining of the skin and  tightening of underlying support tissues. After this has been performed the aging process continues but most of the resultant sagging can be refreshed with a mini lift.

A mini-facelift, or "short scar facelift" or as I call it in my practice a LiteLift addresses all of the above except for the lower neck. The difference is that the incisions are shorter - basically the same description in front of the ear and temple scalp but ending at the level of the earlobe (in front or in back) - as much as 40% less scarring.We do most of these procedures with oral sedation and local anesthesia without IV's or general anesthesia.This seems to be the best choice for most of my patients wanting a secondary facelift procedure.

Other physicians have offered excellent advice about limited skin excision techniques, fat grafting etc.  Most if not all of which I agree with.

Let me offer you a completely different option which is becoming a very popular procedure in my Salt Lake City, UT cosmetic surgery practice which uses two different lasers to perform a "laser facelift".  No skin is removed and it is performed with 3 small incisions about 3-4 mm long.

The first laser is the Smartlipo laser which is used to undermine/separate the skin of the face and neck similar to what is performed with a standard facelift.  The laser also heats the skin to a precise temperature which stimulates collagen remodeling and tightening.  Once again, no skin is removed, I just stimulate the existing skin to shrink and tighten.

The second laser is the SmartSkin CO2 laser which is used to resurface the facial skin.  This also creates collagen remodeling and tightening as well as improvement in discolorations but this laser works from the surface of the skin down instead of beneath the skin like the other laser.

The downtime for this "laser facelift" is 3-4 days.  You look horrible for 24 - 36 hours, but rapidly improve. You will have pinkness or redness of your face for 3 -6 months which is easily concealable. The entire procedure can be done in my clinic with only local anesthesia so you are able to return home very quickly.